In the span of 36 hours, six patients in New Jersey and New York received kidney transplants in March from six living donors -- all previously strangers -- now connected in a rare six-way "Chain of Life."

Kidney chains are a recent phenomenon designed to overcome a long-standing problem in renal transplantation: donors who do not match the blood or tissue type of a loved one. In the past, that meant two options: continued dialysis, or a transplant from a deceased donor. But the wait for a cadaver kidney is three to seven years, and the organs last, on average, only half as long as those from living donors.

Chain of Life - Kidney transplant chain helps six patients

Chain of Life - Kidney transplant chain helps six patientsSix patients in New Jersey and New York received kidney transplants in March over a 36 hour period. The transplants were from six living donors and connected these people, all previously strangers, in a kidney chain. (Video by John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

The National Kidney Registry in Babylon, N.Y. is helping to change the transplant math. The registry keeps two lists: the names of altruistic donors, and incompatible pairs -- donors who are unable to give a kidney to a loved one.

The 12 New Jersey and New York residents who either donated or received a kidney in March were part of the National Kidney Registry's first six-way chain. Six perfectly healthy people donating kidneys to six people they never met before, so that a relative or friend could receive a transplant in return.

Without such chains, the numbers are daunting -- about 80,000 people currently languish on the deceased-donor waiting list. Last year, fewer than 17,000 of them received new kidneys.

Now, a computer at the National Kidney Registry splits incompatible pairs of donors and recipients and re-arranges them into matches. Like falling dominoes, one donation leads to another -- a cascade of kindness, with each donor paying the gift of a kidney forward.

The donors in the historic chain that unfolded in New Jersey and New York in March include a business executive, a truck driver and a sanitation worker. The recipients, a nursing home aide, a young mother and a liquor store clerk. All six recipients had chronic and irreversible kidney disease and all of them had spent years on dialysis, a machine that vacuums their blood clean when the kidneys no longer can.

Without a transplant, at least two of them would probably die within five years.

For more information about becoming a living donor, or if you are in need of a kidney, but your loved one is not a match, visit the National Kidney Registry website or call (800) 936-1627.

ARISTIDE ECONOMOPOULOS/THE STAR-LEDGEREarly in the morning Che-heive Scott, of the NJ Sharing Network, drives through downtown Manhattan to New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weil Cornell Medical Center to pick up a donated kidney that is being surgically removed so he can take it back to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center to be transplanted later in the same day in March.